Judith Curry is a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology. In fact, she’s chair of its School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. Back in June 2011, she titled one of her blog posts Dueling Grandchildren. The discussion there underscores the fact that a variety of legitimate perspectives exist on climate-related matters.

Claiming that your ideas should be taken seriously because you care about your children and grandchildren is a cheap rhetorical tactic. For one thing, it implies that people who hold a different opinion don’t care about their own kids and grandkids – that they’re unfeeling monsters.

It’s also irrelevant. The strength of your attachment to your offspring doesn’t make you wise or infallible. It has no bearing whatsoever on the accuracy of your perceptions or the rigour of your analysis.

I must admit, I find this perplexing. If you really, truly believed that climate change was an urgent problem – and that the fate of future generations was in your hands – would you not work a teensy bit harder?

Would you really employ lazy, insipid, shabby rhetoric such as this – year after year?